walls

Walls are wonderfully protective. History shows that strong walls are the best thing to keep the good safe from the perceived evil: garden walls, castle walls, prison walls. In high school, when it seemed like everything about me was wrong, I built strong walls around me. They kept everybody from seeing me for the horrible person that I was convinced I was. They kept me safe from the world, and the world safe from me.

I met James part way through grade nine. He wasn't willing to accept that my walls were impenetrable, though I was pretty sure nobody would ever be able to get through them (or want to). He told me one day that if I felt I couldn't tear them down that he was okay with that, but that he wanted to be on the inside. He wanted to know who I really was, and he promised that whoever I turned out to be he would only love me all the more from knowing.

Naturally, I didn't believe him. I couldn't bring myself to believe that anyone, no matter how sweet, could ever love "someone like me." As wonderful a guy as I thought he was, I decided to do everything I could to prevent him from getting too close.

He started out by trying to climb his way in, but in my blueprints I had accounted for someone trying this, and the outer face was smooth as glass. He couldn't get even the most precarious of footholds. This frustrated and angered him and he yelled at me to help him, pounding with his fists and kicking his feet, but to no avail. My walls were too strong to be broken by a simple little temper tantrum.

Next he tried to burrow his way under. Digging fast and furious so that he could wriggle through before I could plug up the hole. But I was smarter than that. I had sunk my walls so deep that he could have dug until his arms fell off and I would still have been safe.

In desperation he took a gentle approach. Slowly, stone by stone, he began to take down a section just small enough to squeeze himself through. This tactic took me by surprise. I hadn't anticipated it, and I had no idea how to protect myself from it. I scrambled madly to fortify the spot on which he was working, but he was determined to get through and I was slowly coming to the frightening realization that he might succeed.

Picking up any pieces of material I could find I worked steadily, but it began to dawn on me that I was running out of room. the walls behind me were hemming me in and I had no space left in which to build; and still he was coming toward me at an alarming rate.

Knowing I was defeated I sat down in my self-built prison and shook. My fright came from my eyes in torrents. I knew I couldn't stop him now and I sat immobilized in fear. Until I heard something, or rather, I heard nothing: he had stopped. The noise of his ceaseless chipping away had actually ceased. Had he gone away? Oddly, this prospect saddened me a little. I had grown so accustomed to his being there and had come so close to reconciling myself to his imminent victory, that I hated to think he had suddenly given up. I called out to him, just to see if he was still in hearing distance and he answered me.

He was crying now too, though I couldn't figure out why. My fortress prohibited me from understanding those on the outside as much as it kept people on the outside from understanding me. Somehow, through his tears he told me he was sorry, that he hadn't meant to scare me, he had simply not wanted me to be so alone. His sobbing was a wretched sound. His breathes came in gasps violent enough to make me tremble, and I began to feel sorry for him. It is hard to comfort someone through walls as thick as those that were around me, but I couldn't just sit there and listen to him; I wanted to help him.

For the first time in years I tried to break down my own barriers. Those walls that had once given me blissful sense of security became oppressive and suffocating. I called him again, in encouragement, asking him not to give up.

Recklessly we tore down age-old barriers; protections from dangers long since forgotten and by now wholly irrelevant. We grabbed the last stone between us at the same time in what was the most precarious moment I have ever experienced in my life. Surrounded, but not separated, by mile high piles of rubble we stood there staring at each other. It had been so long since I had met someone like this that I didn't know what to say or do. The heaps of broken stones at our feet reminded him that he must tread lightly or risk breaking me completely. The awkwardness fell away when he very gently put his arms around me and held me; rocking me slightly and stroking my hair. Now instead of the walls protecting me from him, he was protecting me from the walls. Taking me by the hand he led me through the tunnel we had built and out towards reality. And I was not afraid.